Wow. Ok, I finally found my long lost CD of Heather Nova’s Oyster. I bought this album back in high school after hearing “Walk This World” once. A lot like how my Tori Amos fandom began. Well, I haven’t been able to listen to this album since 1999 when I misplaced it. I forgot how emotionally raw this album is. Dear god, it’s like this woman found some magic lantern and wished for a direct pipe to the brain via sound, and uses this pipe to send 50,000 volts (carrying at least 100 amperes) of pure, unfiltered, unavoidably narcotic emotion directly into your amygdala. Or maybe this is just tapping into what I put into it as a teenager. I always have been some deep running waters. Scares the hell out of me sometimes. Anyway, I’m sitting here as it flows from track to track, so high on some tracks I’m literally dizzy; so low on others that there is an elephant on my chest; so incredibly tortured on some that I want to scream out so this icy hand will stop squeezing my heart. I actually had to pause the album because my heart was racing and skipping beats.

I haven’t felt like this in years. It’s magnificent to feel so tortured again. I’ve been dead for far too long.